Custodians are essential to the functioning of any institution—yet they are also some of the least-recognized staff members. This paradox contributes to the increasing difficulty to find custodial staff all across the nation.
This is reflected at Concordia College as it has become harder and harder to fill custodial positions for the past few years. The pandemic has only exacerbated this phenomenon.
Concordia started outsourcing through the company ServiceMaster in fall 2021. Director of Facilities Dallas Fossum said this solution will likely be short-term for the college.
Fossum said, “(The decision to outsource) was born out of necessity because of the workforce shortages since the pandemic. We are actively recruiting for custodial positions and the desire is that once we fill more positions, we hope to reduce the extent to which we are outsourcing.”
The outsourced staff are servicing administrative buildings and Old Main while in-house staff work in student spaces, such as residential halls and academic buildings.
Assistant Director of Facilities Rob Smith said, “As we have continued to have more and more vacancies, we have had to expand our outsourcing to more and more buildings, but we will cover residential halls as fully and as best as we can before we have to outsource student areas.”
It is more expensive on an hourly basis to outsource, so the outsourced staff will be cleaning less frequently to maintain Concordia’s budget.
“To stay budget neutral, we are cleaning three days a week in administrative buildings, but if we were doing it in-house we would be cleaning five times a week,” Fossum said.
Outsourcing will not impact cleaning services except the frequency at which they occur. Fossum said there should be no noticeable difference between cleaning three versus five times a week, but it may have long-term impacts on the cleanliness of the buildings.
Concordia seems to be grappling with unemployment more severely than North Dakota State University or Minnesota State University Moorhead. This can be due to state schools being able to offer more incentives to their workers, especially reduced cost for insurance.
State schools can offer custodial workers several incentives, including paid vacation and sick time, pension and discounted insurance. Building services supervisors Paul Smith and Matt Langlie said MSUM offers the highest wage of the tri-colleges for custodial staff. Both NDSU and MSUM are facing custodial staff shortages as well.
As a private college, Concordia is unable to offer state benefits, but has been incentivizing a $1,000 sign on bonus and increased flexibility of hours. Despite this, supervisor Paul Bjelkengren said the staffing shortage has become especially prevalent on campus this past year.
“Years ago, we didn’t have this issue. About 10 years ago, we would have a job positioning and have an applicant pool of about 10-12 people. We would actually sort through and pick who we wanted to follow up with. Now, we need to interview whoever applies because we can’t afford to pass them up,” Smith said.
Smith said another reason Concordia is struggling is because there have been several retirements recently.
“The people that are leaving, that we are unable to replace, are veteran people. We are not only losing manpower, but also the experience that they have accumulated over the years of doing custodial work,” Smith said.
Donna Preston worked at Concordia for 38 years and retired this month. Preston said she is grateful for her time at Concordia and for investing in the retirement plan, which allowed her to retire at 62 and care for her husband during COVID-19.
“I have worked in every building on campus due to my various roles. I had many students work for me throughout these years and became friends with many who I still stay in touch with through Concordia. Concordia became a second home to me,” Preston said.
Although Concordia is experiencing fewer staff, certain technological advancements have made it easier for custodial staff to do their jobs. Fossum said Concordia invested in an automatic mopping machine that cleans by itself and connects to workers via phone.
“It’s just one way we are getting better. It has saved us a lot of time. We can run the machine six to seven hours a day. It used to take someone six to seven hours a day to run a riding machine, but now it does that itself, so that worker can do other things while the machine mops,” Fossum said.
In addition to advanced technology, Fossum and Smith said individual attentiveness can make custodians’ jobs easier. Picking up after oneself and treating the residential hall as home are two ways to aid custodians.
“One of the main issues we have is actually in the residence halls. For example, East Complex has had cases of student vandalism in the past year. This throws a wrench in our ability to make it a pleasant living space and for us not to spend all of our time cleaning up a building or two when we need to cover the campus,” Smith said.
Fossum and Smith also ask students and staff to be patient and understanding as Concordia works on recruiting new staff and implementing outsourcing.
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